We’re not sure how he finds the time to even add projects to his slate, let alone make them, but Guillermo del Toro has gone and done it anyway, putting Pinocchio on his ever-growing to-do list.

Because of prior commitments, including The Hobbit, Frankenstein, Drood and Lizard In A Blizzard, Del Toro will only be executive producing and co-writing this version. Well, we say only…

This version of Carlo Collodi’s classic tale will be a world away from Disney’s colourful take – instead, it’ll be a darker story, told in stop-motion animation, with The Jim Henson Co. already on board. Brian Henson, Lisa Henson and Jason Lust will produce.

The movie will be co-written and directed by Gris Grimly, who has experience with Pinocchio – he illustrated a version of the tale in 2002.

"The idea came from Gris, and everybody loves his book about it,” Del Toro told Bloodydisgusting.com. “The original story is far more perverse and spooky and [there’s a] semi-necrophilia vibe to it in certain aspects. Gris certainly has that vein in him, he wants to do this with that original spookiness in it, we are trying to get it going.”

Don’t hold your breath, though. “It’s not coming to a screen near you any time soon, even if it were to begin today it would be about three years in the making,” added Del Toro, “but we are working to make it happen. A full-scale puppet universe takes time!"

And he should know – after all, Hellboy II’s prologue featured puppets and it’s just one of the many areas that has long fascinated Del Toro. So believe us when we say we’re going to keep an eye on this one…

I've always found the Disney version of this tale to be quite dark(Certainly one of the darkest Disney outings!) so this news comes as a joy to me. A no holds barred version would be awesome. Keep the good news a-coming Empire..... More

Dark Crystal-esque + Del Toro's vision of the Donkey transformation = a wacky, wacky movie. He might as well jump on the bandwagone, anyone hear more about the gothic version of alice in wonderland? More

Wow, this sounds excellent. I could see this being a really dark and twisted version, and love the idea of it being stop-motion. Could really add to the whole vibe. Although not strictly stop-motion, I've got an image of Radiohead's 'There There' video in my head, which I loved and had a beautiful but twisted feel to it. Del Toro really is just about the best at his craft these days so I have high hopes More